


The Cinder Assembly

by watercolorgalaxies



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, F/M, Fae & Fairies, Fae Magic, Fantasy, Magic, Moon, Multi, OC, Occult, Original Character(s), Sapphic, Short & Sweet, Witchcraft, wlw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-23
Updated: 2018-03-23
Packaged: 2019-04-07 00:34:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14069025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/watercolorgalaxies/pseuds/watercolorgalaxies
Summary: After running off to the woods in pursuit of magic, Aureli is woefully uncertain of her future. She meets a fae girl and together, they explore their world of love, magic, and loss, and they're sure that nobody will forget their names until long after they're gone.Tegan is a simple girl who lives by the ocean. She wakes up with the sun and falls asleep with the moon. Nobody's quite sure where she came from, and she isn't quite sure why an occult organization has developed an interest in her.





	1. I. The Dark Morning

Aureli Vivian knew exactly what she planned to do, yet wasn’t quite sure how she was supposed to carry it out. Through all her years, she’d learned the vast majority of things were far easier said than done.

Magic, of course, was widely unlearned by the majority of humans, its secrets safeguarded by the fae elite. It was possible to learn it with no guidance, but without assistance, spells that usually took mere minutes to master needed hours, even days or weeks. Learning magic as a human was only for the most patient of souls. 

Aureli didn’t bother herself with these so-called limitations.

She had isolated herself for a fortnight in the woods north of Wallowdale in pursuit of magic, which carried much taboo in her hometown. Magic was forbidden; the humans knew to stay in their lanes and leave it to the richest, most powerful fae up in the mountains. A few ran away for it regardless, but this sort of endeavor would forever tarnish their reputations.

It was the earliest part of the morning when they met, when the sky was at its darkest, and you would have to breathe in the crisp air to sense that the day was nigh. Creatures rustled within the forest, but they seemed to only exist as sounds and concepts without a corporeal form. Or maybe that was all in her head. She didn’t know; magic had a way of blurring the lines between imagination and reality and consciousness and slumber.

Aureli couldn’t sleep. She tossed and turned in her small bed made of leaves, but her mind simply refused to rest.

She took a deep breath, then tensed up. She heard a rustling only feet in front of her.

Aureli lay perfectly still, straining her hearing to try to detect any other sound. It was a clear, windless night. There was a living thing out there, and judging by its noise, it was large.

She heard a pair of footsteps circle her makeshift lean-to, slow and steady and crunching the leaves below. Aureli slowly sat up, and from there scooted out, her arms visibly shaking. She could hear her heart pounding in her ears, and although it was fairly cold she was sweating.

The creature walked around the corner, and revealed itself to be the silhouette of a young fae. 

She looked up, making steady eye contact with Aureli. Her eyes were dull blue, and her dark auburn hair was cut at her chin. She looked wild, untamed- but there was still an aura of softness about her. Aureli felt herself ease, but remained on edge.

She immediately jumped to her feet and pulled her small dagger out of her boot. “Who are you? Why are you here?” Her voice cracked.

The smaller girl held her hands up in a display of peace. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“Who are you?” Aureli asked again, her voice harsher. While the fae seemed unintimidating, she didn’t know anything about her. For all she knew, she could be a scout sent by the town here to persecute her. The mountain-fae despised anyone who used magic, and would destroy entire villages to keep their inferiors in line. 

“Carmen Marigold.” Her voice was loud and clear, like a bird call at dawn. She took a clumsy step back. “I’m from Wallowdale.”

Not Aureli’s hometown. She took a breath.

“Why are you out here?” Wallowdale was the heart of Amia, and most of its folk wouldn’t dare to live in the wilderness.

Carmen shivered, and fear echoed through her eyes. “I needed to get out.”

Pause. They stared at each other in silence for a few uncomfortable moments.

“That’s it?” Aureli raised an eyebrow.

“Yes.” Carmen snapped. “Who are you, anyways?”

“Aureli. Aureli Vivian.”

Carmen looked at the ground and kicked a stone. “Alright. You mind if I stay with you for a bit? I haven’t eaten in days.”

And there began the infamous Cinder Assembly.


	2. II. Moonrise

Fifteen-year-old Tegan Iris sat at the edge of the rocks and watched the waves crash onto the shore ten feet below, letting the spray caress her face. The sky glowed a vibrant shade of fuschia against the pale green ocean. 

She swayed her legs over the drop, and waited for the moon to rise. Ever since her childhood, Tegan refused to sleep as long as the moon wasn’t up there watching. It was a classic stereotype of Lunaris, but Tegan didn’t care. 

She never really thought about the other citizens of Lunaris. They rarely gave her any thought, with a few exceptions. It probably had to do with the way she showed up as a child and all the mystery around that whole situation, but since that was the first thing that sprung to mind when anyone else thought of her, she vowed to only make it the tiniest part of her identity. It was just a clumsy beginning. 

Tegan felt the sun shining on her back, and knew it was almost time. She enjoyed these minutes by the rocky beach; they always gave her time to think. 

A sliver of the moon peeked over the horizon, and she felt a chill down her spine. The sky around it began to darken, fading into a gloomy shade of blue-gray, and she watched the night spread across the sky like ink across parchment. Shadows danced across the water, leaped over the rocks, and covered her and the fields around her in a silvery blanket. The landscape was stripped of its saturation, and one by one, the lights of the town flickered, flickered, and went out. 


	3. III. Runaway Runaway

A day and a night had passed since Carmen found Aureli on that dark morning. While magic was not Carmen’s original reason for running away, Aureli’s hopeless fascination with the matter lead her to pursue it as well. After all, the idea of being able to conjure and control to your heart’s desire was so appealing to anyone.

“Close your eyes.” Aureli whispered, her voice strangely raspy. “Sense everything. Feel the ground beneath your feet, hear the whistling of the wind, see colors and shapes. Transport yourself to somewhere else, somewhere unlike anywhere in this world. You aren’t in this dimension, you’re in the one nobody knows anything about. You’re in uncharted territory here.”

Carmen stood perfectly still and the light bounced off her face.

“Now open your eyes.”

She jolted. “Holy hell, what was that?”

“Just a little way to help you get to know magic.”

She kicked a stone on the ground. “What even is magic? You say a lot about it, but I don’t know much.”

“Nobody does.” Aureli struggled with finding the right words. “It’s this weird force that connects everything. Everything we know and everything we don’t. But with increased awareness of the world around us, we can learn to control it. To a degree.”

“Wow.” Carmen sat down on a nearby rock and cupped her chin in her hands. “And I thought it was just an invention of the mountain-fae.”

“I think they discovered it. Or enhanced it. All I really know about magic is that I’ve been obsessed with it since I could talk.”

“You know what I’ve been obsessed with?”   
“No, what?”  
Carmen grinned. “Birds. All sorts of creatures, really, but especially birds. Don’t you wonder how they stay up? Do you think it’s magic?”

“I think anything can be magic if you wonder enough.” Aureli looked at her, and felt heat rising in her cheeks.

“Aw. That’s adorable.” Carmen was always fidgeting. She really could never stay still. She was chaotic, but contained. Aureli couldn’t tell if she was a butterfly in a cage or completely free- or somewhere in between like most people. It didn’t matter. They seemed to have an abundance of time to figure each other out. 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading~


End file.
